Of Dreams and Dogs
by Quinndolynn
Summary: Jack and the world of 2010


Of Dreams and Dogs

All I wanted was a dog.

According to Kinsey I wanted my old life back.

"Face it Jack!" he shouted, as secret service personnel dragged me out of the oval office, "You're just mad because the fate of the planet doesn't rest with you anymore!"

Lies. Just more of the typical crap that always issued from his mouth.

Course what I was shouting doesn't bear worth repeating either.

Kinsey wasn't even close. I liked being retired just fine. Sleeping in, drinking beer, fishing, it was the life I'd always wanted. It just got a little lonely sometime.

That's where the dog came in.

To be honest, it wasn't just because canine companionship had far outstripped that of other members of my species years back. I wanted a large, stupid animal to keep me company, and chase away the things that haunted my sleep. Dreams, where the world ended in fire, or my everyday life was haunted by starkly dressed figures wearing cold smiles.

Sometimes it seemed my past life was a dream as well. I lived under a mountain. Went through a gigantic bubble wand that blew blue smoke, to fight snakes that lived in people's heads and made their eyes glow. My best friends were a guy who died, did a stint as an all-powerful being, then came back to life, a small mountain of an alien, and a theoretical astrophysicist.

I was going to marry her once we'd won the war.

But something went wrong with that dream life. My nightmares have always been clearly defined, set apart by blood, and a little boy's blank eyes. A nightmare it wasn't. Most of the time it was pretty good.

But my dreams have happy endings. And my past life didn't.

Yes, we won the war. But my friend's people were decimated, reduced to a straggling handful. So was the race of the guy who should have been my father-in-law. Our allies, the Little Gray-Green Men, deserted us.

She married someone else.

"Joe gave me this," she said abruptly, holding out the black, velvet box.

I took it and flipped it open, stalling for something to say. I noted the carat, the shine. This was a ring to be flaunted.

"People normally wear these on their fingers," I said. It was a stupid thing to say.

"I know you don't like Joe…" she began carefully.

"Now that's not true. I just happen to disapprove of the company he keeps." If she wanted my endorsement I wasn't going to give it freely. Already I had an intense dislike of the Aschen. Joe was guilty by association.

Her mouth tightened.

"Would that include me?"  
Just like that, my happy ending disappeared in a poof of blue bubbles.

The dream ended. I woke up, and wound up here, wide-awake and lonely.

Sometimes figments of my dreams visited. The high-ranking general and the little alien girl, all grown up with a husband of her own, both of whom for some inexplicable reason felt the need to trek out to visit me. But their visits were infrequent at best, and my other friends were still asleep, dreaming, now matter how hard I tried to shake them awake.

A dog is so much more reliable then fickle human nature.

Then she came to visit. For the first time she actually came to my cabin to see me.

She'd had what I'd been saying all along, thrust into her still believing face, and like being doused with a bucket of ice water, it had woken her up, to the chill realization that the real world was ending. She asked for my help.

I refused. I'd done my best to defeat two hostile alien races. If the planet wanted to subvert my efforts then it got what it deserved. I was through. I'd washed my hands of the whole affair.

She just looked at me, her hair still short, her face not showing one trace of the past ten years, but plenty of the disgust she felt for me, and then she went away.

After she was gone, I couldn't find any proof that she had ever been there to begin with. Another figment of my sleep-starved imagination.

It was while I was shaving, my hands covered with slippery soapsuds, that I realized I was going after all.

I never got a dog. Instead, I slipped back into the crazy dream-life, a messed-up world where the bubble wand was at the airport, Kinsey was actually right about something, and the fate of the world once again rested with me.

I guess I'll have my ending after all.

AN: It occurs to me as I write this that the dream metaphor is kinda Matrix-like. Despite the fact that The Matrix is my favorite movie of all time, the similarity (homage, as the BBE "writers" would call it) was NOT intentional. However, I do think it's kind of cool. Also this is one of many MANY 2010 fics I have jostling around in my head. (I long ago gave up on publishing them in any sort of order.) If for some odd reason you actually liked this then read "Selkie," and keep an eye out for the Tomorrow Trilogy, which I will finish, someday. And review!

P.S. Speaking of the tomorrow trilogy, any ideas as to who Cassie would be married to in the future? I have an idea, but I'd like to hear yours.


End file.
